Gas and flame in modern warfare

by Samuel James Manson Auld

The newspapers we got at that time were generally a good many days old, and censored at that, and our chief source of news about the war in other people’s parts of the line was a summary of so-called information issued from headquarters, which percolated down to the battalion and, like every other summary before and since, went by the name of “Comic Cuts.”

Somewhere about the middle of the month we heard that in somebody else’s summary had appeared a paragraph to the effect that a deserter from the German lines up in the salient had told a cock-and-bull story of how they intended to poison us all with a cloud of gas, and that tanks full of the poison gas were already installed in their trenches.

Of course nobody believed him. The statement was “passed for information for what it is worth.” And as nobody ever believed anything that appeared in Comic Cuts in any case, we were not disposed to get the wind up about it. And then, about a week later, on April 22, 1915, was launched the first gas attack; and another constant horror was added to an already somewhat unpleasant war. Details about the attack are still somewhat meagre, for the simple reason that the men who could have told much about it never came back.

The place chosen for the first gas attack was in the northeast part of the Ypres salient at that part of the line where the French and British lines met, running down from where the trenches left the canal near Boesinghe. On the French right was the —— Regiment of Turcos, and on the British left were the Canadians.

Try to imagine the feelings and the condition of the coloured troops as they saw the vast cloud of greenish-yellow gas spring out of the ground and slowly move down wind toward them, the vapour clinging to the earth, seeking out every hole and hollow and filling the trenches and shell holes as it came. First wonder, then fear; then, as the first fringes of the cloud enveloped them and left them choking and agonised in the fight for breath—panic. Those who could move broke and ran, trying, generally in vain, to outstrip the cloud which followed inexorably after them.

The majority of those in the front line were killed—some, let us hope, immediately, but most of them slowly and horribly. It is not my intention to try to play upon feelings, but those of us who have seen men badly gassed can only think with horror of a battlefield covered with such cases, over which the Germans subsequently advanced.

The Canadians on the British left fared both better and worse than the French coloured troops. Only their left appears to have been in the main path of the poison cloud, but there is little doubt that in the thickest part those who did not escape either to a flank or to the rear were killed on the field. Thousands of those in the support trenches and reserve lines and in billets behind the line were suffocated—many to die later in the field ambulances and casualty clearing stations.

Of those on the fringe of the cloud many saved themselves by burying their faces in the earth. Others wrapped mufflers round their mouths and noses or stuffed handkerchiefs into their mouths. Many of these men were saved by their presence of mind, for though gassed at the time they recovered later, after treatment in the hospitals.

It is on record that the Canadians, with handkerchiefs or mufflers tied over their mouths, continued to engage the Germans and that a number of them actually charged back through the gas cloud in an endeavour to reach the enemy. What became of them is not known.

In this way a big gap was made in the Allied lines, through which the Germans advanced. But the Canadians quickly formed a flank on the left and stoutly engaged the enemy, with such success that they first slowed up and then brought to a halt the advance of the Germans. It was this prompt action and gallant resistance that probably saved the day.